Release date: August 25, 2023
Label: AFM Records
Production: Martin ‘Mattes’ Pfeiffer
Album length: 53.58 min
Genre: Heavy Metal
Rating: 8.5/10
U.D.O., the long-lived champions of heavy metal led by the indestructible Udo Dirkschneider, once the main voice of Accept and the man without whom some of metal’s greatest studio classics are unimaginable, dropped their eighteenth studio album at the end of August 2023. Yep, you read that right: eighteenth. Considering the first U.D.O. album, “Animal House”, came out in 1987, that’s an incredible pace. Eighteen albums in 36 years. An achievement few can brag about.
Before the new record, though, there was another lineup shake-up, which U.D.O.’s career has seen plenty of. “Game Over” (2021, RockLine review) had Slovenian bass ace Tilen Hudrap as a permanent member, but he was later replaced by none other than Udo’s longtime Accept companion, Peter Baltes. Baltes found himself out of a job at Accept, so it was only natural for the old pals (Udo and Peter) to team up again. And last but not least, the DNA of today’s U.D.O. lineup has more in common with classic Accept than the current Accept lineup does.
Back to the material on the new U.D.O. album. Once again there are too many tracks, but there were too many on “Game Over” too, and on a few earlier U.D.O. records. That’s just how it goes. “Touchdown” brings nothing revolutionary in terms of artistry. It’s rock-solid and stubbornly self-contained. Creatively immovable. It runs on the tried-and-tested songwriting formula. And a true-blooded fan of this band doesn’t want anything more than that. Changes are actually unwelcome. “Touchdown” is a head-to-toe barrage of chargers that sound very familiar, already heard, but only in the context of past U.D.O. albums. And they’re not far from Accept either, of course (especially the album’s peak moments, the title track and Sad Man’s Show, which sound like they escaped straight from “Metal Heart”).
“Tochdown” is at times also pretty pompous, as the chorus melody of Fight For The Right shows. Oho, and the mid-eight section in that track, with a neo-classical insert like Accept (Metal Heart) or U.D.O. (the main motif of Podmoskovnyie vetchera used in Shout It Out) used to pull off, where Andrey Smirnov this time treated himself to a bit of the Turkish March (a work by W. A. Mozart). No wonder this very track was picked to fire up the faithful ahead of the album’s release. It came out as a standalone single. Right after it, Forever Free (also released as a separate single) sounds perfect and extremely classic, keeping the album’s pomp at a high level.
Everything is where it should be. In all the expected places. Udo Dirkschneider screams with undiminished fury. Mind you! The man turns 72 on April 6, 2024. And the vocals aren’t losing power. Not an ounce. Andrey Smirnov remains the main guitar force in recreating everything we associate with the U.D.O. trademark sound, and it should be added that he clicked brilliantly with German guitarist Dee Dammers. Baltes is simply Baltes (the elder statesman of metal bass) and Sven Dirkschneider remains a fearsome drumming machine. Even on the parts of the album where a song’s development doesn’t exactly impress at first listen, the crew saves things masterfully by adding choir chants, which lift the atmosphere in the choruses, and the track still grabs you hard (e.g. Punchline, Living Hell).
Once again, “Touchdown” is a head-to-toe album that’s not just expected from U.D.O. but downright welcome. It falls short of its predecessors, “Steelfactory” (2018, RockLine review) and “Game Over”, in nothing. It’s hard to take anything away or add anything, since that could derail the optimization of typical U.D.O. artistry. Still, there’s once again that unfortunate realization that ten tracks are enough for an album, and thirteen, which is what this one has, is overkill. Things start to repeat a bit, because the artistic room within the songwriting recipe itself is very narrow. Nothing new, then. But fans of the band will be thrilled with all of it. And for a gorgeous new studio effort, that definitely counts.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Isolation Man
2. The Flood
3. The Double Dealer’s Club
4. Fight For The Right
5. Forever Free
6. Punchline
7. Sad Man’s Show
8. The Betrayer
9. Heroes Of Freedom
10. Better Start To Run
11. The Battle Understood
12. Living Hell
13. Touchdown
Lineup:
Udo Dirkschneider – vocals
Andrey Smirnov – guitar
Dee Dammers – guitar
Sven Dirkschneider – drums
Peter Baltes – bass
Guest musician:
Stefan Pintev – violin on track no. 13
